State Government spin doctors (and some media allies) have been busy with smoke and mirrors, trying to cloud the truth about multiple Park Lands attacks (at least six this year so far).
Like magicians who divert your attention to create an illusion, State Government misinformation is hiding the truth about massive losses to your Open Green Public Park Lands.
Since being elected in March 2022, the State Government has produced plans or proposals to confiscate your Open Green Public Park Lands for:
The Government has even explicitly endorsed the likelihood of future Park Lands losses for what are expected to be future hospital expansions, further into your Park 27.
The State Government’s own propaganda identifies even more of your Park 27 that is being viewed as “future expansion space” for hospitals.
Documents obtained by Lord Mayoral candidate Rex Patrick have revealed that for most of these attacks, no brownfield site was even considered. Bureaucrats were not authorised nor instructed to examine other site options.
These attacks are evidence that the State Government does not love your Park Lands. As former Labor Attorney-General Chris Sumner has described it, the current Government appears to see your Park Lands as a “land bank” for current and future development purposes.
How has the Government responded to you and others, who love your Park Lands?
Let's unpack the spin, the smoke and mirrors, and outright disinformation that the Government is using.
Botanic High School expansion
The proposal to construct an eight-storey high school building on your Frome Park is being justified by Infrastructure Minister Tom Koutsantonis and the Member for Adelaide Lucy Hood in these terms:
"The Department for Education has finalised plans with the City of Adelaide that will result in a net gain of council-owned Park Lands."
Unpacking that spin
The key phrase in this spin is "council-owned".
Yes, the "land swap" approved in October 2022 by the outgoing Adelaide City Council is supposed to result in more of your Park Lands being managed in future, by the City Council. However, the High School expansion will result in a net loss of your Park Lands. Obviously, the portion to be lost will be the portion of Frome Park to be buried under the concrete of the new school extension.
It’s going here, in Frome Park / Nellie Ramminyemmerin Park (Park 11)
Land in Helen Mayo Park that is being handed over from the State Government to the City Council in exchange, represents merely a change of administration (legal ownership) not an addition to your Park Lands. The land to be handed over is already part of your Park Lands. It does not replace the loss that is being inflicted on your Park Lands in Frome Park by construction of a new eight-storey high school building.
No-one can expand your Park Lands by building over them!
2. New Aquatic Centre
The State Government claims that the site chosen for a new Aquatic Centre in your Denise Norton Park was the site chosen by community consultation.
The Member for Adelaide, Lucy Hood has told her constituents:
"community consultation undertaken by the Department of Infrastructure and Transport and from a Community Reference Group made up of stakeholders, local residents and sporting groups, showed there was majority support for the chosen site in the southwest of Park 2."
"Once construction of the new centre is complete the existing site will be demolished and returned to Park Lands – ensuring there is no net loss of Park Lands with this project."
Infrastructure Minister Tom Koutsantonis has repeated the "no net loss" claim and has further claimed that: “the site chosen was the one with the least impact on existing trees.” Mr Koutsantonis has also claimed that it was a Labor election promise to build the new $80m aquatic centre “on the current site or in the adjacent corner” of Denise Norton Park (Park 2).
2. Unpacking that spin
There are four claims being made in the Government spin, all four of which are, at best, misleading.
Claim 1 - “community support”
The so-called community consultation conducted by the State Government was a sham. Departmental “consultation” offered the community no option to suggest a site other than on your Park Lands.
In contrast, a real open-ended community survey found only 9% of respondents supported a Park Lands site for a new Aquatic Centre. The Government has failed to even acknowledge the views of 682 people who responded. The Government spin tries to pretend that these people and their views do not exist. This Government claim of community support is so ridiculous that we’ve called bullshit on it. Read more details here.
Claim 2 - "least impact on trees"
The claim that the chosen site has the "least impact on existing trees" is plainly false. It would have been possible (and is still possible) for the Government to choose an alternative brownfield site with no existing trees. Dozens of mature trees will be felled and Open Green Public Park Land built over, if the Government persists in its plan to attack your Park Lands.
Just some of the dozens of trees that the State Government intends to chop down in Denise Norton Park / Pardipardinyilla (Park 2) after refusing to consider any brownfield site for its proposed new Aquatic Centre. Pic: Alex Frayne
Claim 3 - an election promise?
The claim that Park 2 was identified as the only option, during election campaigning is false. During the State election campaign, the Premier Peter Malinauskas and the then-candidate for Adelaide, Lucy Hood were careful to be deliberately vague about where a new Aquatic Centre might be built. The word "adjacent" was used but it left open the possibility that a brownfield site in an adjacent suburb might be chosen. Indeed this turned out to be the most popular choice among respondents to our open-ended survey.
During election campaigning, no Labor spokesperson promised to fell dozens of trees in your Park Lands! In fact, before the State election then-Labor-candidate Lucy Hood said “open, green space is literally green gold. … How we value and protect that heritage speaks volumes about who we want to be.”
Claim 4 - “no net loss”
The Government's proposal of no net loss, from this proposed development, rests on the misleading premise that the footprint of the new building is the only thing that should be considered. The Government's plans will entail destruction of dozens of decades-old sugar gums, yellow gums, Aleppo pines and other trees; each one of which provides habitat to native species.
During the 2022 State election campaign, in apparent acknowledgement of the value of Adelaide's shrinking tree canopy, Deputy Labor leader Susan Close promised to reform SA's tree protection laws to save mature trees. The "no net loss" spin is a shallow misleading response to a tree loss which is entirely avoidable.
3. Women's and Children's Hospital
The Government spin around this project contains multiple distortions of the truth.
Claim 1: “opening up” Park Land
Member for Adelaide Lucy Hood is telling her constituents that putting a $3 billion hospital on Park 27 will be good for your Park Lands:
"As a result of this project, we are opening up 30,000 sqm of land that is currently fenced off, dilapidated and bituminised around the new Women’s and Children’s Hospital site."
The answer to this spin is an obvious one. There is no logical connection between “opening up 30,000 square metres of land” and “this project” to put a $3 billion hospital in your Park Lands.
Yes, there are areas of your Park Lands near the Thebarton Police barracks that are fenced off and degraded. Here are two of those areas.
Both of them need to be landscaped, and fences torn down.
We have been adamant that SA’s pioneering policewoman, Kate Cocks deserves better honour for the Park that bears her name.
If the State Government properly valued your Park Lands then it would work with the City Council to tear down these fences, and landscape the areas, without delay. We’ve challenged the State Government to do that. Making your Park Lands available to you as Open, Green, Public is an entirely separate matter to the question of where to construct a new hospital.
Claim 2: no alternative
The Premier Peter Malinauskas has claimed that there is no alternative to the site of the Thebarton Police barracks and the adjacent Kate Cocks Park. However, it is not a binary choice.
Any chosen site represents some compromise. The Government’s chosen site was picked by consultants after they were advised to assign zero value to your Park Lands and zero value to the heritage buildings of the Thebarton Police barracks.
4. Multi-storey car park
At the time of writing there appears to have been no Government spin attempting to justify destruction of a forest of she-oaks and ancient olive trees to make way for an eight-storey car park.
5. Replacement Police Barracks
A new law about to be passed by State Parliament in November 2022 allows the Police Minister to simply confiscate any part of your Adelaide Park Lands that the Police Minister wants, to allow construction of a new barracks, offices, storage space and stables for the Police Mounted Unit. At the time of writing no site had been selected.
Health Minister, Chris Picton has said that this is no different to horse depasturing, which is allowed for up to 20 privately-owned horses within your Lefevre Park / Nantu Wama (Park 6).
What Mr Picton has failed to mention is that the horse paddocks in Park 6 are Open, Green, Public.
Anyone can walk through those paddocks. The horses are not stabled there, merely depastured. The fences are to keep the horses in, not to keep you out.
For your own safety, don’t approach any of the horses unless the owner invites you to do so. But there’s no problem walking through their paddock, which is one of the highlights of our Trail Guide to Lefevre Park/ Nantu Wama (Park 6)
In contrast, the SA Police Mounted Operations Unit requires its horse enclosures to be securely fenced, to keep out the public. The Unit would also need stables, offices for 40 staff, storage and car parking. Such a move would be a further loss of your Open Green Public space.
